Alireza Mashaghi is a principal investigator and a tenure-track assistant professor at the LACDR Division of Systems Biomedicine and Pharmacology, Leiden University, since 2016. He leads the Medical Systems Biophysics and Bioengineering group. His lab conducts research at the interface of physics, engineering, and biomedicine.

Alireza Mashaghi is a principal investigator and assistant professor at the LACDR Division of Systems Biomedicine and Pharmacology, Leiden University, since 2016. He leads the Medical Systems Biophysics and Bioengineering group. His lab conducts research at the interface of physics, engineering, and biomedicine.

The lab develops and uses theoretical and experimental approaches to address basic and applied research problems. Fundamental research is focused on the single-molecule analysis of biomolecular structure and dynamics. In particular, how interacting molecules (e.g. chaperones, drugs or metabolites) assist or interfere with conformational search of biomolecules and how fold topology defines dynamics of biomolecules. Other areas of interest are systems biophysics and complex biological networks. The lab develops tools to analyse topology of interactions in complex systems (e.g. genome, metabolic network, signalling network, and human disease networks). The hope is to demonstrate how these topology analyses help solving biomedical problems such as molecular folding puzzles and medical diagnostic problems.

The lab also applies engineering analyses and design approaches to problems in translational immunology and biophysical immunology/haematology using single-cell and chip-based approaches. Some of the studies are directed towards understanding inter-individual variations that we see at different scales in the biological world, from cellular populations to humans.